


Kyber & Ink

by KelAlannan



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Jedha, M/M, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 19:15:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11111100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelAlannan/pseuds/KelAlannan
Summary: A history of Baze's body art and what it all has to do with Chirrut.





	Kyber & Ink

**Author's Note:**

> This an expansion of a scene I put on Tumblr for Spiritassassin Week. It's sort of my headcanon that under Baze's jumpsuit, he is all tatted up, like a Maori warrior. 
> 
> My inspiration for the first tattoo is Time Lord writing from Doctor Who, so you can picture it like that.

**-1-**

One of the first things a child of Jedha learns in schooling is the slow dance of SolJedha, how Jedha orbits NaJedha and NaJedha orbits its star as they move in relation to the other bodies of the galaxy. It is depicted across the moon as schoolchildren circling each other, as clay mobiles hanging in doorways, as intricate designs of concentric circles and connected lines.

One of first tattoos Baze puts on his body is a beautiful line drawing of their system across his upper back. He is 16 years old when he goes into the marketplace to the ink-and-needle woman and puts too much faith in his ability to use zama-shiwo to manage the pain. Yet, despite the water in his eyes, something about the pricks of pain ease him into a depth of meditation he has not achieved before. 

The other students of the Temple admire the work and are quietly jealous of Baze's art and fortitude both. He can't talk to them. It is only Chirrut, a somewhat irreverent but constantly striving novice, that he tells of this experience, enraptured both by the work and what it did for his inner peace. He swears to Chirrut that he can feel the Force flowing through every inked curve. Chirrut's hand is gentle on his back as he smooths soothing cream into the red skin and black lines, even as he jibes Baze that if pain helps him meditate, he'd be happy to assist.

**-2-**

The next couple years are busy for Baze as he ascends through the Guardian ranks and he has little time to set a day apart for another tattoo. Case in point, he spends the week before his test for sixth duan sitting in the courtyard, scrolls of his carefully curated notes surrounding him.

After whispering memorized prayers and histories to himself and sparring invisible opponents with staff in hand on the last day, he sits in meditation. Or he tries, but his head is not a desert at peace but a sandstorm, whirling with thoughts and fears and insecurities. 

He hears footsteps approach and he tenses for an admittedly unlikely attack, but a body thumps to the ground opposite him instead. He opens his eyes and finds Chirrut, his younger friend who just tested into the fifth duan, sitting cross legged in a mirror pose to his own. 

Chirrut smiles at him. "Preparing for your big day?" 

"Trying," Baze mutters, ducking his head so Chirrut won't see what his eyes say. 

Chirrut shifts forward until their knees touch and then grabs his hands. The touch soothes Baze's head somewhat. "We will pray together," Chirrut decides, closing his eyes. He begins, "I am one with the Force and the Force is with me," and Baze follows a beat behind. 

It is easy to lose track of time in meditation, so Baze doesn't know how long it has been when the dinner gong rings out. He and Chirrut open their eyes at the same time and the closeness of joint meditation spurs Baze to open his mouth and admit, "I am afraid to fail."

Chirrut presses a hand to Baze's chest, above his heart, and says, "The strongest stars have hearts of kyber." Chirrut is normally a showoff, a joker, cracking wise in classes when the masters can't hear, but there is a depth of seriousness to his face now that roots Baze in place. Until Chirrut stands and, with his normal sly smile, hauls Baze to his feet and tows him in to dinner. 

 

Baze achieves the sixth duan the next day, to no one's surprise. The usual crowd of peers is waiting outside the test chamber and when Baze stumbles out, sweaty and sore and stunned, he sees Chirrut in the lead. Baze acknowledges quiet gratitude to him with a nod and Chirrut grins back. Then the crowd is around him, shouting congratulations, slapping him on the back and arms, and laughing as he winces at the blows on his sore body. 

Chirrut makes his way next to him and begs, "Come into the city with me tomorrow! We will celebrate!"

Baze rubs his neck awkwardly and says, "Ah, I cannot tomorrow. I have plans. I am sorry."

Chirrut's smile doesn't falter when he replies, "Another time then," but Baze thinks his shoulders have drooped somewhat and he feels like a beast. 

 

Two days later, Baze slides onto the bench next to Chirrut at supper and asks, "Brother Chirrut, would- would you like a cup of tea after supper? I picked up some fresh leaves in the market yesterday."

He grows warm at the brightness of Chirrut's smile. "I would, Brother Baze."

Baze leads the way to his cell after supper and Chirrut sits delicately on the edge of Baze's bed, as indicated, while Baze putters around with the kettle. While the water boils, Baze sits beside Chirrut. His palms are sweaty and he curses himself that if he can hold zama-shiwo for the Masters for three hours, he can control his body now. 

"I wanted to show you why I couldn't take you up on your offer." Chirrut waves him off, as if to say it doesn't matter, but his face twists into bemusement as Baze unties the side of his new robe and pushes the left side of his outer robe away. He's not wearing the traditional undershirt, so he bares the skin of his chest as he turns to face his friend. 

Right over his heart is a ball the color of Jedhan sand from space with jagged crystals of kyber in their infinite geometries jutting out, as numerous as the points of a star. Without thinking, Chirrut reaches up and brushes his fingers against the inked skin. When Baze shudders under the touch, Chirrut pulls his hand back. "Does it still hurt?" There is only a slight red hue to the dark cream of his skin around the tattoo, but Chirrut remembers from Baze's last tattoo, years ago, how his back was sore for days under his clothes.

"I'm fine," Baze mutters, cheeks tinged with the same red color. 

"You know you didn't have to show me to prove you have a heart of kyber," Chirrut teases. "Even a blind man could see it." He extends his hand once more to lightly touch the ink crystals. 

Then Baze's hand is at his shoulder and even as he leans into Chirrut's touch at his chest, he angles his head to press his lips to Chirrut's own. 

The kiss is only brief before Baze pulls away and stands to fuss with the kettle. 

"I don't mind in the least, in fact I liked it quite a bit," Chirrut says conversationally, "but what is all this for?" 

Baze is silent while he pours two cups of tea for them and when he sits, he keeps his hands wrapped tight around the cup. "You were kind to me the other day and I- I liked you believing in me."

Chirrut's smile is sly. "Would you like if I said I believe you should kiss me again?" Baze does, so he does.

**-3-**

There is a remote Temple outpost in the desert that Chirrut and Baze trek to the day after they're married. It's tradition, Master Loa says, for newly wed Guardian pairs to take a week's posting there for "joint meditation". Chirrut grins shamelessly as she winks at them; Baze clutches his hand as he wants to sink into the ground.

They return a week later, reddened by the sun and by sandscrape, looking positively sated and even more in love than when they left. The next day, Chirrut accompanies Baze into the city when he gets the character for "Chirrut" etched into the skin on his wrist.

**-4-**

It's a dark time for them when Chirrut loses his sight. It is in answer to their pain and to his husband's new needs that Baze goes to a different sort of artist. After a week bandaged, he has Chirrut trace the raised scars that form his name on the other wrist.

**-5-**

Chirrut is still finding his way when Baze achieves the seventh duan, but he can listen as Baze tinkers with the pieces that will become a lightbow. He can't see the lightbow Baze gets tattooed on his upper right arm, struts flung wide around his bicep, but Baze takes his hand and traces the outlines of it that Chirrut may see.

**-6-**

When the Force deserts Baze, he doesn't get another tattoo for a long time. He doesn't expect to find the same peace under the needle pain and he finds he doesn't care about anything enough to make it permanent. His fingers still trace Chirrut's name, both the flat and the raised, but his love is light-years away and probably still mad at him.

Then one day on a freighter bound for Nar Shadaa, a shy Togruta asks Baze if he can draw his repeater cannon. He shrugs his ambivalence and buries his nose back in his datapad. When he takes a room on planet, he finds the drawing tucked into his rucksack. He considers it for a time, the mixture of brutality and beauty sketched by a hand that clearly considers weaponry its own art, then goes to find an artist who will put it on his left arm. It cancels out the mysticism the lightbow opposite represents, he figures.

**-7, 8, 9, 10, ...-**

It turns out that Baze finds absolution in the pain of the needle, so he accumulates more tattoos. Abstract geometries across his thighs, star clusters and spiral galaxies encroaching on the SolJedhan system on his back, recriminations on his forearms.

He hides them all under a baggy jumpsuit, so only he knows they're there.

**-14-**

Maybe it's stupid that it's something so silly, but Baze gets a just ripe, deep purple pak'pah tattooed opposite his kyber heart.

His ship lands on Jedha early in the day, two weeks from the day that Baze dreamt of a lonely Chirrut in their room at the Temple and decided it was time to go home. He helps unload the merchandise, as paid for his passage, and leaves the spaceport for the city. 

He knows the spots he and Chirrut could often be found, but he doesn't go to them. He isn't sure he's ready to go searching for Chirrut yet. He has been dreaming of him most nights and thinking of him most mornings, but to face him...

Then a voice cuts through the ambient marketplace noise. "Buy a pak'pah, handsome stranger?" Sitting on a low stair is Chirrut, as easy on the eyes as he has ever been. He's smiling, cheekbones high and eyes crinkled up with the strength of it. A small, nearly whole, deep-colored fruit sits in one hand, while the other extends a knife with a sliver of the fruit on it. 

Baze is struck dumb, not only at finding his husband so quickly without even looking, but at how easily the monk seems to take it in stride. Even if Baze could find words to say, he isn't sure they could get through his closing throat. Instead he steps forward and takes the piece of pak'pah off the knife. 

He studies Chirrut's face as he bites into the fruit and feels the flesh give way to bright, tart juice on his tongue. It's a little overripe, perhaps, but it tastes like home and hours snuck away in the Temple gardens. It's not the best he's eaten, but somehow it's the best he's eaten. 

He offers the other half to Chirrut, touching the piece to Chirrut's lips, and Chirrut takes it from his fingers. His mouth looks sweet as he chews and Baze touches the thick pad of his thumb to Chirrut's juice-sticky lower lip. 

Suddenly, as if Chirrut is only now sure it is really his Baze standing before him, he drops the knife and fruit beside him and stands to throw his arms around Baze's neck. His hands worm under the ammo tank on Baze's back and squeeze the hard muscle he finds there. 

Baze drops his head to Chirrut's neck and doesn't let himself feel ashamed at the wetness pooling between his cheek and Chirrut's cool skin. Chirrut is whispering soothing, celebratory nothings into Baze's ear and yes, they are still in love, they are still each other's devoted husbands. 

Baze opens his eyes after a time and they focus on a deep purple fruit with blushing orange leaves against the clay-colored Jedha rock. 

 

A week later finds them in the abandoned city guardhouse where Chirrut has been squatting at night. Chirrut is spreading octogave aloe on Baze's right pectoral, cooling the burgundy inflammation around his pak'pah tattoo. 

From there, it is only natural for him to finally tug the jumpsuit hanging at his waist down further. And to map what contours have changed. And for Baze to take Chirrut's hand and trace all his new tattoos, even when he shivers at the touch. 

And it is only natural for Chirrut to press his lips over his lover's quickening pulse to the one tattoo he can see, the scars of his name where his husband carried his love and his pain through the galaxy and back home again.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to send questions, comments, philosophies on [Tumblr](https://kelalannan.tumblr.com/)


End file.
